Pulse of The People: We still have slavery

Many people believe slavery is no longer around, but it's actually just affecting the world in new or different ways than people imagine, including sex trafficking, child soldiers, and force labor of immigrants. Slavery has such a strong effect on people, some effects are good some are bad. They can understand what it means to be free and push them to get freedom. Just like Fredrick Douglas, he was a slave for most of his life. He knew he wanted and deserved more, he wanted the chance to pursue happiness and he took it.

One of the most common types of slavery in America is the enslavement of immigrant workers. Immigrants can be taken advantage of anywhere, most often on the bordering states of America where immigrants have the easiest access. The slavery may be to pay off a debt owed by the immigrant, "In every case documented by CIW, an element of debt bondage is involved. Traffickers promise to take workers on credit to well-paid jobs where the debt incurred for transport can be paid off quickly" or they may be forced to work with little to no pay. These workers are a huge asset for a company because they get the work they need done for much less than an American would do it for. One example of a business doing this is at fairs. Often the owners will promise good pay, room and board to Mexican workers. Once they start to work for them they will get a hold of their papers for identification. This forces them to stay and work, because they can't go home or anywhere without the paper work the owners took.

Economically slavery has many negative side effects. This will leave less open jobs for Americans. Many people in America already struggle to find jobs and cannot compete with people working for very little to nothing. The people being forced to or working under these conditions, may not care about the products or the business. This could be bad for the business, because products could need recall or customers wouldn't buy them. For some business's paying these workers so little can really benefit the business. Either giving them extra money to upgrade or expand or increase profit in general. This can financially hurt the workers though, with such low pay it easy to find yourself in debt, it can also make it a challenge for them to make the money they need to provide for their families and pay for college. "Farm forced labor workers are some of the poorest paid and most exploited workers within the U.S. economy. They earn on average $10,000 a year and are excluded from many of the fundamental labor rights guaranteed to most other US workers, including the right to organize and the right to overtime pay."

This is a problem that needs to be fixed. These businesses are violating labor laws and the right to the pursuit of happiness. Slavery is never right, many people compare it to older style slavery. Some say that one is worse than the other but in the long run, they all take a person's rights away. Slavery isn't right under law, or in any other imaginable way. Every person deserves to live a long prosperous happy life. Please help us inform the population and make new laws to give these immigrants freedom, and put away the people that took their rights.